Monday, September 19, 2016 from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM (EDT)

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The Capitol Forum and the George Washington Institute of Public Policy Present: Dominant Platforms Under the Microscope: Policy Approaches in the US and EU

Lunch will be provided.

Antitrust authorities at home and abroad are increasingly scrutinizing how dominant platform providers protect and extend their fiefdoms.

European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager filed a third set of charges against Google relating to the search provider’s advertising services. This comes on the heels of two separate complaints brought by Vestager relating to Google’s Android mobile-phone software and shopping service. The EU has charged Google with improperly using Android’s status to force device makers and wireless carriers to favor Google’s search engine and other services.

Back home, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly re-examining similar antitrust issues in Android and search. In 2013, the FTC decided not to sue Google after a lengthy probe into whether the company abused its market position in Internet search, but accepted voluntary commitments from Google instead.

Google is not the only platform provider under the antitrust microscope. In Japan, Amazon’s office was raided in August by antitrust enforcers; Amazon is accused of forcing retailers to set their prices lower on Amazon to give its site an advantage over rival e-commerce sites. Last year, EU regulators opened a formal investigation into Amazon’s e-books business to determine whether Amazon used its market power to force publishers to accept terms that harmed e-book purchasers.

These investigations raise significant antitrust questions: Is traditional antitrust analysis equipped to address the conduct of a platform provider? If traditional antitrust is not equipped, should this conduct be policed under a different set of laws? Or should antitrust be adapted to accommodate the special challenges raised by platform providers? Is favoritism of one’s own vertical services while diverting users away from a similarly situated rival a cognizable violation of the antitrust laws? How do the insights of behavioral economics alter the analysis, if at all? Similarly, what implications do Big Data have on traditional antitrust considerations?

Please join The Capitol Forum and the George Washington Institute of Public Policy on Monday, September 19th at 12:00 pm for a policy forum to debate these issues, and to discuss whether and how U.S. antitrust enforcement might evolve under a new administration. An esteemed panel of economic and policy experts will offer their insights.

Agenda:

12pm: Lunch Presentation

Ben Edelman, Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School